Cause and Effect
by JaguarCello
Summary: Grantaire is pretty messed up, but then everyone knew that already.
1. Chapter 1

It wasn't that Grantaire had that much of a reason for being like this. He, like most of the students, was from a fairly well-off family, and although his parents had cut him off, they'd been alright before he started drinking. And really, he felt like he needed a reason – because seriously, who gets depressed because their lives are too safe? So he'd started drinking and "self-medicating" (and that wasn't even his term for it, but that was what the creepy pot dealer called it) to try to make himself numb. There wasn't much to live for, but not much to die for either.

And it had worked – he'd turn up to school in the same crushed shirt from last night, and a pair of jeans from the nearest charity shop. There was ice on the ground but he'd always leave his coat at who-ever the hell's house he passed out in last night, but he didn't care about that. And he'd go to class even though it was fucking boring, sometimes. Mainly when he needed a distraction (because he'd been stockpiling pills for months, and he knew all the side-effects off by heart), but his life had been going in this way for a few months when he met them.

"They" were a group of students the same age as him, and they'd found him at a party being felt up by a terrifying guy from the year above. The terrifying guy hadn't noticed yet that Grantaire was senseless at this point, but Joly had, and Coufreyac, and they'd charged over (they practically had wet dreams over the idea of rescuing the needy, for god's sake. And Enjolras _definitely_ had wet dreams about it) and Combeferre had punched the scary dude in the face. They'd (apparently) picked up Grantaire and carried him off at a run, before barricading themselves and him in a room away from the rapey guy. He'd actually got a "consent is sexy" talk from Prouvaire, of all people. But he'd not sobered up until the morning, and that's when he met Enjolras.

He'd been sitting on the floor by the window, smoking. The ash was falling onto his shirt, stained already with cheap beer, but he didn't care enough to do anything about it. Joly had leaned into the room. "They'll kill you, you know." Grantaire had snorted, and inhaled even more, blowing smoke towards Joly's direction.

"Oh, really? I hadn't fucking known," he said, and then sighed at the kicked-puppy expression on Joly's face. "Well, we've all got to die of something, anyway." He turned away from Joly's half-grimace, and blew a smoke ring the size of his hand.

A different voice – more confident, deeper (which went straight to his cock_ my god_) – interrupted his smoke-art. "That's funny; put it on your gravestone." Grantaire turned to see a tall man standing in the doorway, wearing a red jacket. His face was better than his voice, and for a second, Grantaire let himself believe in something. But then he shrugged, and with a sardonic grin, retorted "Oh, I'm a pauper. I won't get a gravestone and I'll die in a ditch, of drugs or drink or angry men," and then frowned to himself.

He shot a grin (_you're overdoing it you idiot_) over his shoulder, and then, with the desperation of a drowning man, tilted his head back to gulp from the bottle at his side.

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	2. Chapter 2

Since that day, he'd had people to hang out with. Well, he'd had to meet most of them again because he couldn't remember. Combeferre was going to be a teacher, and he'd probably be a good one because he actually liked being helpful and generally was too nice to be real. Jehan (for some reason he was the only one who liked his first name enough to use it) was a bit soppy. He actually wrote poetry, which Grantaire thought was a waste of time – but he was kind-hearted and probably a vegetarian. Then, he'd met Joly, who was training to be a doctor, and had diagnosed himself with pulmonary fibrosis right before they'd spoken (although he was pretty positive about it). Coufreyac was one of the youngest in the year, with the maturity to match, and was practically bouncing off the walls. Even when people had hangovers, the little shit.

After that (and a drink), he'd been introduced to Feuilly. Feuilly had clasped his hand, said "I am an orphan," and then clapped him on the back and dragged Bahorel and Laigle over. Laigle was cheerful and for some reason, called Boussuet by his friends; Bahorel apparently "spends money like water" (according to Combeferre), and was studying law. Not that he went to class.

They were a tight-knit group of friends; Grantaire, who'd never made friends that easily, found them easy-going. They debated (like seriously fucking debated) everything between them, from politics to abortions to gay marriage, at which point everyone had looked at Grantaire. He'd just mumbled something about being a terrible fuck buddy, let alone a husband, and that was that. They didn't even ask about the rapey guy, although Jehan had brought up the subject of consent again(seriously, bloody sociology students). They didn't ask about the drinking or the scars they must have seen, carrying him half naked as he was, that criss-crossed his legs and arms. So it was an interesting crowd, and that was before Enjolras turned up (again).

He was the unofficial leader of the motley crew – not that he'd ever call them that, because he was fiercely proud of them - and could hold forth on any subject under the sun, and under different suns – he studied everything with a thirst for knowledge that Grantaire had never seen before. Which of course was typical for someone who actually quoted the health warnings on cigarette packets. With him came Marius, who apparently was "in love" with a girl from the dorms across for them. She was rich, apparently – her father (or adopted father, as the whispers went) doted upon her. Like, a lot. Allegedly, he'd found her living practically as a servant in a pub, but nobody knew how true this was. She did all her own cleaning and cooking, even though she was in catered dorms, and she gave a lot of stuff to charity, as Marius would enform anyone who couldn't run fast enough. Which was usually Grantaire because "sober" wasn't "exactly one of his character traits", according to Coufreyac, and so Grantaire knew a lot. A fucking lot.

Marius himself was fairly level-headed, and didn't get too involved in the fiery debates of the others. Once, Enjolras had almost hit him for defending the rich (some tax evasion thing, apparently. Grantaire forgot to listen), but of course he'd come from a rich family. Most of the "amis" (how fucking pretentious can you get?) lived together in the same dorm building, the same one as Grantaire. He saw them a lot now, around the place. He'd come face to face with Boussuet at the shared washer-dryer on the ground floor (there was some beer under one of the sinks for safe-keeping), rocking back and forth in horror at a machine, lazily spinning all his shirts (now a pale pink) against the glass. Of course, Coufreyac took responsibility for the red hat (seriously, this kid was as loud in dress taste as he was in life) that had been blamed - and Feuilly had told everyone of "another incident" in an ongoing saga of unluckiness for Boussuet...

And Grantaire drank steadily from his corner, or smoked (and was forced to smoke out the window in case it made Joly's disease of the week worse), and listened to their passionate words. But none was as passionate as Enjolras; he'd stand up and talk as if he'd practised it (and he might have done, because he had no social life and social justice probably gave him a boner), and he'd get a certain look on his face, and his cheeks would redden with emotion and – okay, so Grantaire was staring again. But who wasn't? It was fine.

The only time he'd zone out would be when Marius would talk about Cosette. He'd somehow found her room (which quite frankly is creepy) and had some photos of her from her Facebook page – they weren't friends because she had no idea who he was – and he'd wax lyrical about her hair, her smile, her lips. Grantaire didn't believe in love – he was studying art, but his teacher had noticed his "apathy" (her word, not his) and tried to make him believe in it because "it's so important to artists!" (and yes you could hear the multiple exclamation marks) and so obviously he'd had to fuck her, just for a pass grade.

And yes, it was probably bad – he could practically hear the slaps in the face he'd get if it became known that he'd "betrayed his gay identity" because seriously, people got pissed about that (but he'd have to ask Jehan about stoned sex; he's probably got a _blog_ about it). And it wasn't that he liked her, because he liked nothing, but if he failed he'd get kicked out of college. And then he'd probably have to do something drastic to forget himself. Because the only thing he believed in (apart from drink, drugs and throwing punches for the hell of it) was Enjolras.


	3. Chapter 3

It was a Thursday morning when Grantaire first met Éponine. He'd woken up in a strange car parked in the road outside a bar, with no clue what the hell had happened the previous night. It was a Wednesday night, for god's sake. Les Amis (he had to use the name, apparently) had started off the night with him, but then at some point he must have left – they'd been in a bar, judging by the frantic messages on his phone from Bossuet - too nice for Grantaire, with his tattered coat and shoes; but he'd woken up without both of them.

When he got out (fell) from the car, the ice crunched under his bare feet. He half-hopped into the bar, and promptly tripped over a stool in the doorway. A girl (who looked barely legal to drink, but he could see from the way she moved her fingers that they were itching for a bottle) sitting next to the stool smirked at him, her dark eyes glinting, and held out a hand (bitten fingernails, and smoke-stained) to pull him up.

"You put that stool there, you know." Her voice was husky with smoke and drink; he cleared his throat and realised his would sound the same. "How – where am I?" She laughed, and then pointed at the sign above the bar; "Corinthe". He looked around, hoping to see his friends. A crooked clock on the wall chimed nine, and his head split with pain.

"They left you a note. Apparently –" and she was reading from a crumpled receipt now – "you drank a bottle of wine in under two minutes and then another two. Then you –" she paused, and snickered - "you decided to have a rant about banks or something. Everyone thought you cared about an issue, and Enjolras even asked you about it, but then we realised that no, you'd just run out of cash. And then you went to sleep in the car because we hid the key. We were amazed you could even get drunk, to be honest. You weren't too nasty, but you did laugh at Jehan's poetry. He cried." She handed the note to him, along with an unlit but rolled joint; he tucked it behind his ear.

Grantaire tried to force his brain to make sense of this, and looked closely at the note, turning it over. "P.S. – good find. The food's bad and the wine's worse but they think you're funny. We get free drinks next time, if we dare to come here again – Courfeyrac".

He looked up, and found she was still looking at him. "I'm Éponine, by the way. Did you know that we're actually a three minute walk from your dorm? Why your car is here I have no idea." He frowned, and looked back out at the car, which still wasn't his.

"It's Marius's car – but Éponine, do you know what happened to my shoes and coat?" He looked around the bar again, and caught sight of the landlady's eye. She nodded at him, but he couldn't see his coat, and his head throbbed.

"And why does my jaw hurt?" He rubbed his face in an attempt to sooth it (_bad idea_), but she raised an eyebrow. "You'll have some pretty bad bruises. Come on," and she jumped off the bar stool, and presented Grantaire with his shoes. "Yeah, so Courfeyrac thought it would be a good idea to hide your shoes and coat. He (and this is a quote) said that if you left here you would die. He then compared the whole thing to a volcano or something? I don't really know. Jehan probably wrote a poem about it." Shrugging, she started making shooing motions.

He shoved his things on, not bothering to do the laces up, and then she pulled his coat off him again and put it on herself. "What? It's cold outside." He rubbed his jaw again, and followed her out the door.

She was right – it really was just round the corner from his dorm; they walked together back up the stairs, she chattering all the while, and yes, he did mean all the while. She flitted from subject to subject – her dad, growing up in a sleazy pub, her problems – what was it that made women think that just because he liked dick, it mean he was into hearing about her period pains? Like, sure, he sympathised, but there was such a thing as too much information. And when he voiced this, he was kicked in the balls for his trouble; she said something about the "patriarchy" (oh, she would get on well with Jehan) and turned to go.

"You're alive!", exclaimed Marius from the doorway (and that boy had no volume control). "No, we literally all thought you were dead. And I mean I had to leave my car there so we could trick you. And if you were sick in my car I will kill you. Ditto if you smoked weed in my car. There is just no need, plus it's illegal and I -" He stopped, and looked at Grantaire's face. "How did you get into a fight between staggering out the bar, falling on your ass, and then us carrying you into my car?" He half-smiled in amusement, before walking back into his room, leaving the door half-open.

Grantaire turned to look behind him, but Éponine was no longer there. Shaking his head (and okay, again, bad idea), he shuffled into the room, almost tripping over his laces, before lurching to a halt in front of the group – sitting on sofas and cushions and, in certain cases (Bossuet and Joly) practically _entwined_ together on the same pouffe. He frowned slightly at them (seriously what the hell had happened to that girl he thought had been mentioned last night?) but flopped down on a corner of the sofa, in between Courfeyrac – who _winked_ at him and then motioned to his shoes – and Combeferre.

He wasn't looking for Enjolras. He wasn't not looking for him either, however, and when he did walk in from across the hall – hair slightly damp from a shower, bag slung over his shoulder, Grantaire straightened in his seat. Just a little.

"Oh, I met a girl this morning," Grantaire said, as casually as if he were talking about the weather (which obviously was appalling). "She told me where you'd all buggered off too – " pointed glance here at Joly and Bossuet – "but anyway, thanks for not letting me drive. Like, I wouldn't care if I died," and then he realised he was still a little drunk; _come on get it together_ "because our little lives are unimportant in the great scheme of things, the sun, the stars, all that shit." This was said triumphantly, and luckily Jehan nodded along with him, and started up a conversation about reincarnation, which Combeferre joined in with enthusiastically. He checked his watch – an heirloom from a distant relative – but to his dismay, the face had been smashed, and the hands had fallen to the fragment of casing left. Typical.

"You know, I thought Bahorel and I were the only ones who didn't bother with class, don't you guys –" Bahorel thrust a mug into his hand, beaming with the smile of someone perhaps over-medicated. At least he wasn't the only one not legally sober then – and as he took a sip from the coffee (burning his tongue), he tasted what was probably _brandy_. "You're such an enabler," he grinned, and then took another sip, relaxing into the cushions.

"Yeah, we did, but we thought you were dead so we were going to wait until you got back. Nice tattoo, by the way." Grantaire looked to where Feuilly was motioning – his shirt, resplendent with stains of all sorts of questionable nature, was hanging open, and the curve of words could be seen. Grinning ruefully, he buttoned up the shirt. "I'm too sober to show you lot. And _anyway_, yeah, I met this girl called Éponine. She gave me back my coat, so thanks Courfeyrac. And she gave me a joint. But then she disappeared when we saw Marius -"

Courfeyrac gleefully punched Marius (who groaned like someone had murdered his puppy – which he probably actually had) in the shoulder, and then, straight-faced, said "Are you sure you know what a girl looks like, R? Not exactly your area of expertise – " but he stopped when he saw that Enjolras had raised a (perfect) blonde eyebrow. "Oh, forgive me that I might try to make jokes, fearless leader. And I don't know what you're being all _sarky_ about, you even don't have an area of expertise – " A cushion hit him in the face, thrown by Feuilly. Grantaire's eyes flickered between Enjolras and Courfeyrac – were they implying what he thought? He was as much of a virgin as he looked? (And my god he looked glorious)

"Seriously?" he couldn't stop himself from asking. "You've never – " Bahorel was shaking his head behind Enjolras, but Grantaire ignored him. "Honestly, never? Do you even believe in fun?"

Enjolras gave a forced laugh. "Look, my private life is private, hence the name. I also don't drink, or smoke, or take drugs, or seemingly fail to do anything without some sort of material gain available for me. I actually go to class because I have a focus in life –" Bahorel made a slight noise of protestation and he paused, high spots of colour on his cheeks. Was he _embarrassed?_ This speech certainly hadn't been practiced."I believe in living as I am comfortable with, and you don't believe in anything!"

Grantaire stiffened where he sat, mind racing as fast as his heart. "Why does it bother you that I believe in – I - yeah, so I self-medicate a little – " Enjolras snorted, and Jehan burst in before he could continue – "Okay, here's some of the notes from History I borrowed, thank you!" -, and pressed a bundle of papers and an iPad into Enjolras' hands, which were flexing dangerously. Okay, he hadn't been this mad since Marius had tried to defend his own family. _Way to go,_ Grantaire chastised himself; _you've pissed off the one guy you actually _ - but he stopped his brain before it could complete that thought.

He shrugged though, gulped down his laced coffee, and retrieved Éponine's joint from behind his ear, lighting it in almost the same (very well-practiced) movement. Joly winced, but Grantaire turned before he could get a lecture on how it could cause certain death and probably AIDS (because Joly was obsessed with AIDS, more so than the official "at risk" gay guy. He had given Grantaire _condoms_ before now. Seriously. And a lecture.).

He whistled as he left the flat (badly through the joint) but he didn't stop shaking with a frankly bizarre mix of lust and excitement, until he'd found his whiskey (none of that whisky muck for him) and allowed it to calm him down. He got to class ten minutes early.


	4. Chapter 4

Sitting in class, idly watching the dust motes spiral in the sunlight, Grantaire doodled on a scrap of paper. He had some project or other to do, but if he started it he wouldn't finish anyway, so (he thought) there would be no point. Sadly, this wasn't a view shared by the rest of the class (since he'd drag down their averages to languish in the gutter with his), nor by his teacher. He'd managed to hide the rest of joint (definitely good weed though – he'd have to talk to Éponine again about that) in a small, hollowed-out area of his desk, which was where he kept most of his secrets. Combeferre had insisted on checking the rooms for drugs and "paraphernalia" before his father – a royalist, of all things – had visited, and so his usual hiding places (behind the brackets of ancient radiators, inside pillows) had been taken from him.

They'd "had to confiscate" his bong pipe, but not before Jehan had literally tried to make it into an instrument.

So, apart from the actual and evil _cull_ of his liberties, he'd been left much to his own devices by the group; they'd found that his sarcasm would become cruel when he was drunk (all the time, really), and they didn't mind too much, because Bahorel would find disgusting waistcoats and _wear_ them. And they tolerated the paint he'd always be covered with, the sharp smell of white spirit, the patterns daubed onto the ceiling when he'd smoked too much and couldn't sleep. He worked, but not for his teacher; for himself, which was infinitely more dangerous.

He'd started to notice that he was becoming infected by the ideas of the others. Enjolras (although Grantare was unsure if he was a history student, political science, or just a bit strange) shone with a fervour that he himself could never replicate – without the help of a bottle of vodka. The other students glimmered as well, united by their beliefs and their sheer bloody-minded optimism that something could change (he found a draft of a pamphlet behind the sofa the other day, _seriously_), and Grantaire was the darkness, casting shadow and writing in doubt; sometimes he wondered why he bothered getting out of bed, or dunking his head under the tap to sober himself up, or looking at himself in the mirror as he sank further into himself. But then he'd look outside the classroom window, and see Enjolras talking to one of the professors about the rights of man, and suddenly he was illuminated.

Or maybe he just smoked too much pot.

So that's why when he did paint, in the dark before the dawn, there would be a light in his paintings, and when he talked, the cynic would sometimes give way to glorious rapture; he'd started to believe in something other than the bottom of a bottle. He still drank, of course; he still did everything to numb himself – because he was a fuck-up and he was killing himself slowly (because after the last attempt he'd lost his appetite for theatricals) so that nobody could see.

He'd hoped that nobody had noticed, anyway – but of course, Jehan and Combeferre had. They'd sat him down and asked him how he was feeling, and he'd accidentally told them the truth, his tongue loosened by what might have been brandy. They'd probably been alerted to the fact that he'd been pinching out the candle that he'd been looking at (for half an hour – definitely needed to smoke less pot) until red welts were raised on his fingers and calluses were forming, and then lighting it with the battered lighter (inscribed with "R" – he'd stolen it from the last guy he'd fucked, who'd probably been called Robert or Ron or something) he carried around as a safety net.

So anyway, apparently that meant he needed a "minder", for some reason. They'd accepted that he'd drink himself into oblivion for fun or pain or anything or nothing, and as such they'd help him to look after his cat (but really it had just wandered into his apartment and mewed until he gave it the least sour milk he had) and bring him home from bars, and tell creeps to "go away" (okay, so that was mostly Jehan – the others would use actual swear words. Shocking).

So as he sat, staring now at the way the light fell on a patch of wall, he realised that les Amis were as good a reason to be alive as any, and that since he was by now too apathetic to actually kill himself, he might as well find a niche. And he'd turned into a fucking fairy, wow.

"Mr. Grantaire, am I boring you again?" He was jolted out of his reverie, squinting at the teacher – not his usual teacher, who had cried after he'd fucked her because she thought he had AIDS or something (and although he'd tried to tell her he'd been tested, she still cried and asked him if he _really really liked her _and reminded him why he didn't fuck girls), but a man – probably in his fifties, and his entire life was written on his face. "Oh, I'm not an art teacher, but Miss – " he paused to check his notes – "Matelote has taken a leave of absence. And I'm the only one who's free because some idiot decided to let off firecrackers in the library, again. My name's Valjean (you probably missed that) and I'm the principal of the college. Seriously, you were given a welcome pack – " he sighed, and cast his eyes to the heavens.

Grantaire recognised the name, and the voice (he had a vague memory of being told off for showing up to a study session stoned), and he realised that this was Cosette's adopted father. Adoptive? He'd have to ask Feuilly, seeing as he'd managed to teach himself the finer points of grammar from a book. He checked that his joint was still hidden.

"Sir, I have never been more interested in anything in my life. What were you saying again? I'm afraid I got carried away on a tide of emotion." He grinned sardonically at the man, who frowned. "See me after class, Mr. Grantaire," he ordered. And Grantaire had been in enough police cells to recognise the weary tone of one who upheld the law, or at least who too had spent a lot of time afoul of it. Curiouser and curiouser; he'd have to ask Marius if there were any backstory there.

Grantaire nodded though, and slipped his phone out of his pocket under the desk. Three messages; one from Courfeyrac, one from an unknown number, and one from Joly. Courfeyrac's consisted of an obscene joke and a demand for Mexican food and a trip to the Corinthe, the unknown one said "It's Éponine here, you up for the Corinthe tonight? I need some chemical interference", and Joly's was a reminder to start drinking decaf coffee and put "more milk and less vodka" into what he drank, which was a hopeless crusade if he'd ever seen one.

He grinned at the screen, sent "sure, I'll be pregaming if you need me" to all three messages, and was on his feet before the bell went for the end of the lesson.


	5. Chapter 5

He'd been slouched on the battered sofa inside the Corinthe, trying to smoke without being spotted by the eagle-eyed landlord, when everyone else had burst through the door at the same time. A tinny rendition of "The House of the Rising Sun" was issuing from the ancient jukebox next to the payphone (and seriously, what century was this?), which it had been doing for the two hours that he'd been sitting there.

Joly and Bossuet had come in first, with a girl. He frowned slightly; he'd not met their girl before (yes, that was how he'd heard her being referred to by Bahorel), and she was long-legged and caramel-skinned and stunning. Way too interesting, surely, for Joly (who had just retrieved his antiseptic handspray from his pocket), and the luck that Bousuet would have needed…

She grinned at him, green eyes sparkling, and thrust a hand forwards. "I'm Musichetta, which judging by the number of bottles _strewn_ around you, you won't be able to say for a couple of hours. Grantaire? I've heard a lot about you," and she grinned again, took a glass of fucking _rosé_ from Joly's hand and then literally pulled a cupcake out of her bag. Like it was a totally fucking normal thing to take on a night out – "She bakes a lot," Bousuet whispered, and she lightly touched his face before starting to eat the cupcake.

"I'm too sober for this shit," Courfeyrac announced, and flopped down beside Grantaire on the sofa, reaching for a bottle he'd not yet touched. He leaned back to take a swig, his Adam's apple bobbing in his throat, and then started to cough. "Well, boys" – a sharp slap from Éponine had him rubbing the back of his head – "and girls who are needlessly violent, we can't stay here. The wine tastes like cat piss. And the reason why I know what it tastes like is that when I was sixteen, this girl's brother made me drink it in revenge for fucking his sister. And then he tried to feel me up. I reckon he was messed up. Someone tell Freud," he started laughing, and Combeferre frowned.

"Hang on, shut up you lot – where's Enjolras? Or Marius, for that matter? Seeing as you live with him – " Courfeyrac muttered something about "well he propositioned _me_", but looked around as well – didn't you think to bring him?" He shoved a plate of what looked like nachos towards Grantaire. "Sorry to be doing a Joly, but you're going to hate yourself in the morning. Eat something," and Joly nodded and passed him a cupcake as well.

Grantaire poured vodka onto the nachos and started eating with a somewhat unsurprising gusto. Jehan watched him for a few seconds, and then turned his (worryingly ribbon-festooned) head aside. "Okay, I thought we had something important to discuss? This is actually distressing. Think of Joly's poor imagination, he'll be thinking of poor Grantaire's liver –" but Grantaire offered him a tilted smile and he rolled his eyes, and then spotted Enjolras and Marius coming through the door.

"About time, Grantaire's practically comatose and Courfeyrac is telling us about his sexual experiences –" Feuilly, who had up until now been making origami swans out of the napkins, leapt up and smacked Courf's head in the process. He grinned ruefully, and continued miming.

Marius grinned at everyone, before almost muttering a hello. "Oi, Pontmercy, we thought we'd got you over this "I'm a shy nervous wreck with a tiny cock" thing – " but someone had thrown something at Courf and Enjolras was standing in front of them all.

"Okay you lot, I'm not sure if you've heard but there's a protest going on fairly soon that you might be interested in –" Grantaire sat up, and listened. This was the first actual thing the group had done, apart from order vast amounts of pizza, that sounded vaguely political; he looked at Enjolras and tried to make his gaze neutral.

"And do none of you read your emails? Or check the Facebook? I made it so we could _communicate_ about things like this, not so that you could send each other pictures of puppies – " and here a warning glare was directed towards Jehan – "and it would be lovely if you could check it once in a while." He glanced around the room; Musichetta, Joly and Bousuet were feeding each other cake and whispering what he hoped were sweet nothings. Courfeyrac was on the phone to someone, and saying "darling" over and over; Marius was flicking through Facebook (although not on the group he'd made), and the others were engaged in trying to flip beer mats.

"It's only, you know, a gay rights thing. Some Christians of the wrong sort have been making a lot of noise and we're going to go and shut them up," and everyone looked at him, and then their eyes flickered as one (which was fucking terrifying) to Grantaire, who had given up on flipping beer mats and was drinking from a wine bottle.

"Look, we don't have to do the looking thing every time someone mentions gayness, do we? I'm not the only one in here," and he looked pointedly at Joly and Bousuet, who both nodded at Musichetta. She grinned and grabbed both their hands, and then looked coolly back at Grantaire. "Okay, but I'm not going on any protest march. It's never going to get better; that campaign was bullshit and it changed nothing. I'm always going to get snide comments at the hospital about HIV, or have my parents try to set me up with girls because they don't believe my "teenage rebellion" even though I'm twenty-fucking-three, and quite frankly I don't see the point. About any of it," and he'd stood, swaying slightly, to address the whole group.

Enjolras had moved forwards as well, and was looking from one corner of the ceiling to another. The triangle where his (organic, Fairtrade and probably charitable) shirt had fallen open, was glistening under a sheen of sweat; Grantaire was transfixed, even when Enjolras attacked again. "If you're just going to be negative –" at which point Éponine had come from the toilet with another girl and a Monopoly set. "We're playing Monopoly!" she cried, and then saw Marius, faltered, and shoved the set onto the table.

"Erm, Éponine, we're too busy – " she frowned Combeferre into silence, ignoring his faint smile, and lit the cigarette already dangling from her life. Joly shuddered, and Musichetta rubbed his back soothingly; she turned to Éponine. "And who is this, my dear?"

Marius had stiffened in his seat, and thrust his phone out of sight; Grantaire turned to look at him and realised it must be Cosette. And he'd probably been creeping on her Facebook profile – and everyone was pretty sure that if he found so much as a hanky of hers, he'd probably sleep with it. Marius, Grantaire reflected, was a true example of why romance and love are things we tell ourselves at night when we're lonely.

The girl – Cosette – smiled, and walked straight up to Marius. He stood and stuttered, before Éponine rolled her eyes, pressed a bottle into Cosette's hand, and said "Cosette – Marius. Marius – Cosette," and, patting Marius on the head (okay so Grantaire must had missed her drinking), turned and squeezed inbetween Courf and Grantaire.

She blew smoke into both their faces, and kissed Grantaire on the cheek before passing him a joint. "I rolled it already simply because watching drunkards try to roll joints is one of the most soul-destroying things I have ever seen –" and then grabbed the dog from the Monopoly set and announced "First one to get Park Lane and Mayfair gets to make a sexist comment and have me explain why it's wrong and why you're a fucking idiot," and threw the dice.

They formed into teams, because whoever the hell invented the game had not catered for a rabble like them. Joly, Musichetta and Bouseut were the hat, because "anyone can wear a hat," Musichetta announced mysteriously. Bahorel and Feuilly got the iron because Feuilly likes "making folds in things" (and when did everyone get fucking crazy, Grantaire wondered?); Combeferre and Courf had gone for the car based on "our shared obsession with either Grand Theft Auto or like navigating or whatever the hell Combeferre does for fun"; Jehan had petitioned Éponine to let him share the dog using a sonnet but was shouted down and went for the thimble. Marius and Cosette (who had endeared herself to the group by hitting Courfeyrac when he starting singing) had chosen the thimble too, and so formed a team of three (Marius had never played the game – as Combeferre said, "how the fuck"), and that left Enjolras and Grantaire, grudgingly accepting to play as the ship.

Despite some arguments about paying income tax, the game had settled down nicely; Cosette had won for her team Mayfair and Park Lane, and then revealed her Fem Soc badge, at which point Éponine had clapped (apparently they'd known each other as kids, it was learnt).

Courfeyrac, watching Enjolras and Grantaire bicker over the idea of paying rent for the right to walk down a public street, murmered "this ship sails itself," and then had slipped Grantaire another joint without Enjolras commenting. Grantaire, in turn, had managed to stop fantasising about licking that triangle of neck (nearly, anyway) enough to spot that Jehan was buying properties based on _colour_ and _how it looked_ and so had been able to buy the whole set of greens. Enjolras brought a hotel, muttering all the while about "fairness" and "the people" and possibly something in Latin.

Their ship won by thousands.


	6. Chapter 6

The air in the café the next morning (for they'd been dragged to the Musain after Madame Huchelop had discovered the graffiti that Courf had scrawled on the wall, apparently) was thick with smoke and tinged with regret; Grantaire, waking slowly, looked around himself. Éponine and Combeferre were asleep in one corner, her hand resting on his arm; Jehan was sitting up, but Courfeyrac leaned against him snoring gently, fingers tangled together in the ribbons that had fallen from Jehan's hair. Bahorel slept against the wall, knuckles bruised from fighting imaginary foes in his dreams, and Marius was sprawled out on the floor, his fingers inches from Cosette's hand, which had slipped off the sofa (he must have been chivalrous, and okay, who was surprised?). Joly and Bossuet were curled round Musichetta, their hands linked. Feuilly had fallen asleep with his iPhone still playing (a podcast about some Polish revolution, one of his speciality topics).

Enjolras was sitting at the only table that hadn't been shoved aside to make space for people to sleep, with his laptop and various newspapers in front of him. Grantaire must have made a sound, because Enjolras turned to look at him, and then pushed a glass of water across his table.

Grantaire shuffled over to the table and gulped the water in one, nodding his thanks. The silence in the café, apart from the snuffles Joly was making (he had another cold and was desperately trying to stop Bossuet especially from getting it), seemed to stretch, and Enjolras turned back to his work. Grantaire angled his head to read the papers; they were in many different languages, but he slid one of the English ones round to read it.

It proclaimed in large, bold letters – "Equality is for everyone!" and then, below it, "Kings and queens and nobility have been the exception for long enough," which wasn't quite as catchy. Hopefully it was a rough draft, or something. He leaned forwards to try to read the article, but Enjolras snatched it back.

"I thought you didn't care for politics?" he asked, and moved his bag (covered with various charitable badges and slogans) from the chair next to him. Grantaire slid across to sit by him, keeping his eyes fixed on the dented wooden table.

"I don't, much. Rights, wrongs, life, death, republics, kingdoms – there is one thing I'm sure of, and that's my next drink. You see, I accept that drink is a constant. Other people lie to themselves – they clutch their heads in the mornings and say "oh, I'm never drinking again!" but then the next weekend they're back at the bar, back to the bottle. But I don't do that because it's the only progress I believe in." He paused, and Enjolras leaned backwards in his chair to stretch out. His shirt slid up; Grantaire looked away, and then gestured to the sofa he'd woken up on.

"When was the last time you slept, then? I don't think I've actually seen you sleep since that time you got knocked out for spitting at that wanker, at the transgender rights protest, and that was months ago _and_ accidental –" but he was interrupted by the scraping of a chair as Enjolras stood up blearily and walked the few steps to the sofa. He slumped down onto the battered cushions and curled up. Within minutes, the slight frown lines on his face (probably caused by talking to Grantaire, to be honest) had smoothed out, and his breathing had become slow and even.

Éponine had stood up, disturbed by Grantaire's haranguing, and sat down in the seat Enjolras had vacated. She was smoking (and she was the only person he'd ever met who smoked as much as he did), and she raised an eyebrow at him. "Love sucks, huh?" He twisted to look at her, and then lit a cigarette of his own, hands fumbling slightly.

"Who do you – " and then he remembered how she vanished that time they'd met Marius on the stairs, and how she smiled so widely when they fell asleep holding hands, and how nice she was to Cosette – and he went quiet. "But I thought you were seeing Montparnasse? I didn't know he was in town. He – " and she sniffed once, before running a hand through her hair.

"I'm not – I mean, I don't love him. He says he loves me, but really I think he's lonely, and he wants to fuck someone he knows rather than some stranger in a club. Also, he's got the best weed in town, and I get a discount. Okay, that makes me sound harsh." Grantaire nodded at her, and she flushed slightly before carrying on. "I like him, as a friend, and we used to do stuff when we were younger, and we do stuff now from time to time when we're drunk and horny."

She sniffed again, and furiously wiped her eyes. "We both know that it's like that. We argue a lot – we've both hit each other before, but then we have hate sex… I don't really know why I screw around with him. And then Combeferre likes me, or so I've heard -" Grantaire looped his arm around her shoulders, drawing her close to him. She wrinkled her nose."You smell of weed – Enjolras won't be happy, and Joly apparently did some research and it makes depression and stuff worse – " but he just hugged her again as she sobbed silently against his shoulder.

He patted her shoulder gingerly. "You don't have to be strong all the time, Ép. And yeah, I think I know where you're coming from, especially when Montparnasse is concerned." She drew her head back from his shoulders, and frowned slightly. "You and him – " Grantaire snorted in amusement, and rolled his eyes.

"So I went through a stage, pretty soon after I met you lot, when I was desperate for anything to fill my brain with twilight (not the shitty film, it is a figure of speech, you cretin), and I didn't have much money so I paid him in blowjobs. He kept his eyes closed the whole time and pretended I was somebody else. Actually, we were both pretending he was somebody else. And yeah, I didn't know he was around." He shrugged, and her eyes narrowed.

"I could pay him in blowjobs. I could get free weed. Man, this is inequality; we should tell the gang about the unfairness of this – " and then she burst out laughing, and so did he. She wiped her eyes again, and quietened. "I – well, I think you understand me a lot. Anyone with eyes can see how you feel about Enjolras, apart from him, because he wouldn't know what love looks like, would he? I mean, even if you draped yourself in a tricolour, only a tricolour, and did a striptease, he'd get concerned about the flag being desecrated. He's got a one track mind, that boy." She handed Grantaire a bottle from the floor, and he took a long swallow before handing it back.

"Yeah, but you're in no better place. Marius actually talked to Cosette. He – whom, I have been told, once vomited on a girl he liked because he was so nervous – talked to her in real words in the correct language and everything. He wasn't even drunk – " and she swatted him on the back of the head. "Maybe that's an idea," she said, and put the bottle down on the floor, out of reach.

He looked at her, askance.

"No, I'm serious, R. If we both stop drinking, and stop with the drugs (because seriously, ketamine is overrated even if it is cheap), we might do better. Like I heard what you were saying about the whole drink being constant thing or whatever, and I don't think Enjolras was too impressed." She glanced over to where Enjolras was curled up on the sofa, and her face softened. "I've never even seen him drunk, or smoking, and it's common knowledge he's never fucked anyone… So we're going to have to develop a game plan or something." She looked back over to Grantaire, and he shrugged.

"Fuck it, I can give it a go. I need addiction, though. When I was a kid it was art, and then when I realised that I could drink it was that. After that it became carving patterns into my arms and legs – " she flinched, and put her hand on his shoulder – "and then drugs, and drink again." He smiled bleakly. "But I suppose, I'll try. For you. Not for him," and he gestured with his thumb to Enjolras. "But I can't promise it will be successful, and I'm not going cold turkey. I can cut down."

She smiled at him, and then leaned over and nudged Joly with his foot. He moaned, but unwound himself from Bossuet and Musichetta, and looked over towards the table. Grantaire tilted his head at the empty chairs, and Joly rolled his eyes before standing up and making his way towards the table. On his way up, however, he caught his foot on the piano stool which for some reason, Courfeyrac had moved to the centre of the room, and it fell to the floor with a crash. The whole room startled into activity.

Jehan _mewled like a kitten _and jerked awake, Courf's fingers tugging on his hair as he moved, and they both half-crawled (still joined at the hair-finger junction, because there really were so many fucking ribbons in his hair) to the table. "Thank fuck it's Saturday," Courf grinned, before starting to free his hand. "Prouvaire, you have the most ridiculous hair. Hey, that rhymes! I'm a poet and I know it," and ignored Bahorel's pointed eyebrow raise. Only Enjolras stayed where he was.

"What's the occasion?" asked Joly, taking one of the waters that Enjolras had poured for his lieutenants the night previously.

Éponine turned her gaze away from where Cosette was taking slurps absent-mindedly from Marius' orange juice, and announced that "Grantaire and I are going to cut down on our drinking and drugs. But weed obviously isn't a drug, so we can still have that one pleasure left to us – " and Grantaire put a hand on her shoulder to calm her.

There was a stunned silence, and Joly leaned forwards. "That sounds like it might be healthy," and Combeferre shot him a warning look. He nodded slightly, and looked at Grantaire. "I think you can do it. Cut down, I mean. We can help you, because seriously we don't want a repeat of that time you quit drinking for about a week and then drank all the absinthe we had, and totalled your car…" Combeferre flicked him on the back of the head, and smiled at the two of them. "We'll be here for you," and Éponine nodded.

Jehan looked at Courf's watch (hovering around his ear, because he hadn't bothered to free himself quite yet), and sat bolt upright in his chair. "Damn, I've got a class!" and he stood, dragging Courf up with him, who cursed and said "On a Saturday? I somehow don't think so." but Jehan muttered something about it being it a "poetry thing with people," to which Courf nodded, and then Enjolras sat up and said "Which people?",which made Jehan turn a shade a of red to match the ridiculous waistcoat that Bahorel was wearing.

Feuilly walked over to them then. "It's for street kids, street artists. Orphans, refugees, that sort of thing. Mainly for children. Today, I think we're doing a mural? I help them with teaching (and sometimes Combeferre comes) but I also teach them origami, and Jehan does poetry and writing." He shrugged, and then said "It's run by an old priest, Father Mabeuf, I think. He donated all his books to Jehan to teach with, and it's pretty fun."

The sun was coming through the curtains, and Enjolras clapped his hands. "Who else is free today? This sounds like our kind of thing – why did nobody tell me about this?", and he smiled at the group. "Grantaire, if you're going to be cutting back on the drinking, you'll need a new distraction, right? How about that mural?" and Grantaire looked up, hardly daring to believe that he was being spoken to without judging, and being offered cheerful words. He smiled back at Enjolras, and said "If they'll let me help out – "

"You don't need any sort of qualifications, and the whole child-protection thing? Courf sorted it for all of us when I first heard about it, just in case. I mean, it's not an official thing; it's just people who want to change their worlds being allowed to do so." Combeferre was putting on his coat and a pair of glasses (well, he'd kept that quiet), and he grabbed a bag and threw it to Grantaire. Inside were paintbrushes and acrylics, and oils, all the equipment he'd lost over the course of the months.

The group – the _abc_, as Jehan had called them – met in the city, in a courtyard that was bright with chalk-pictures and different languages being spoken by the children who were wearing more paint than was on their brushes. Éponine gasped, and ran forwards to hug one of the boys – a blonde kid with a jacket similar to Enjolras', and bruise-like smudges of paint on his face, and when Courf saw the kid, he shouted "Gavroche!" and swung him up onto his shoulders, laughing.

Grantaire pulled out his favourite paintbrush, and smiled.


	7. Chapter 7

The flash of sun that had pierced the clouds earlier, had grown to full, blazing rays; the sky was blue in the puddles from the previous night's rain, and Grantaire was painting again. The white wall, which apparently belonged to the orphanage (and Feuilly had hugged the man who ran it with a fierce pride), was an explosion of colour. Bahorel had confiscated the black paint though – he'd told Grantaire that "there's been enough darkness for one winter," and so the children had painted wild rainbows spiralling across bright butterflies; lions and tigers roared outside open cages, because Gavroche had been listening to what Combeferre told him about liberty; sunflowers bloomed on tilted stems and bent to kiss the grass that was blowing in an invisible wind. Bousuet had showered the heavens with glitter, and each star in that bright sky sparkled with a different colour.

Jehan was leaning against the wall, scribbling furiously in a notebook, and shouting out ideas to the children that swarmed on ladders and boxes to reach their canvas. But Grantaire was slouching behind the shed (and oh, that took him back to high school) smoking, and attempting to waft the smoke away from him, because seriously, Enjolras had a nose like a bloodhound. These were some weird clove cigarettes that Courf had "procured" from Jehan (and seriously, even Grantaire had seen the way Jehan's eyes spoke when he looked at Courf; their blossoming love was as subtle as an elephant in a tea-shop), since his had been confiscated mysteriously.

Enjolras rounded the corner just as Grantaire scrubbed the butt into the drain, and his blue eyes narrowed. "You're smoking near the kids?" His voice was neutral; obviously he didn't want a fight, but Grantaire (who's fists had been clenching in restraint ever since Feuilly had taken his hipflask – and also taken a picture and laughed because "seriously, you say you're no hipster? Your flask says "YOLO" on it. And I can't believe you made me say that. R, cynical atheist and nilihilistic pessimist you may be, but that is no excuse" but pocketed the flask anyway) just shrugged, even though he'd been careful enough that the smoke was being hurled from the alleyway by a fierce wind.

Enjolras rolled his eyes, and then pulled his phone from his pocket to bring up an event. "Oh, I'm not sure if you're a functioning part of the Facebook group" – and waved the screen in his face. Grantaire reached out to steady his hand, and froze, fingers wrapped around Enjolras' wrist; Enjolras simply pushed the phone into his other hand.

"Blood donation – Joly's putting us up to it. He can't do it because he had a blood transfusion when he was six– he was trying to take his temperature and ended up inadvertently stabbing himself in the mouth or something, god knows – but we said we'd go along. He's taking blood, and you know what he feels about that. So, as Feuilly said, he'd rather mess us up than poor strangers - it's Combeferre's day off, so he'll be giving it too."

"I grovel at your feet," Grantaire said, straight-faced; Enjolras' eyes narrowed like a cat. He exhaled, and slowly disentangled his fingers from Grantaire's, before slipping out the alley.

Grantaire stared after him, and his hand felt too heavy to hold up alone.

They all piled onto the train to go to the hospital, because recently Combeferre had been "educating" everyone on global warming; not that they didn't know and care already, but when Bahorel found a documentary about the Arctic ice caps, Jehan cried – and suddenly it became much more important. Grantaire's car was also at the hospital, and had been for a week, since the last time he'd overdone it slightly and had needed his stomach pumped – not a pleasant experience.

Feuilly had stolen a book about the Egyptians from Combeferre (because apparently his fascination with paper had started when he was seven and forced to make papyrus in school) and insisted on reading aloud the parts that dealt with how the Egyptians would treat orphans. Éponine had started to flick bits of paper at Combeferre, trying to hit his glasses (which he didn't wear often, because – and this is a quote – he thought they made his eyes look "squinty, and I can't be untrustworthy when I'm teaching, even for medicine") with each one; he was trying to frown at her but failing miserably.

Bossuet and Musichetta had left a seat in between them, even though Joly was at the hospital, and they were passing round hand sanitiser (officially to get the paint off, but also because quite frankly, they too-often indulged in "sordid" pastimes, as Enjolras had once said -for he was could be as cruel as he was beautiful) and muffins. The muffins were vegan, probably on Bahorel's insistence (because whilst he went out looking for fights just to "keep his nails short", nothing affected him more than fluffy baby animals; or so Éponine had said).

Grantaire was sat across from Jehan and Courf – between which _something_ was certainly happening, not that they'd said anything - who both had lines of writing looped around their hands, in Jehan's neat script. It looked as if Courf had been persuaded to paint his nails (or, given that they had tiny panda faces on them, Jehan had done it), and Cosette and Marius were sat next to them. They were talking loudly – not just with words (how they all met) but with looks and delicate touching of cheeks; it was adorable and repulsive and cheesy all at the same time.

Only Enjolras was standing, swaying with the motion of the train as it clattered through the city, his eyes fixed on the patch of blue sky outside the window. It had turned colder that afternoon, and he'd buttoned his red shirt up to his neck. Grantaire tilted his head slightly to admire (from an artistic point of view, of course), the way the muscles in his back and ass moved to keep him standing; his jeans were unfairly tight (he'd muttered something about less material means more for everyone else, but in fact everyone knew he could be vain – and with an ass like that, nobody blamed him) and for once, he wasn't talking. He looked like marble, cold and beautiful; his eyes fixed on Grantaire's suddenly and then his gaze turned to the group.

The train pulled to a halt, and his legs shifted almost obscenely, and Grantaire's mind was filled with images of Enjolras splayed out wantonly – but he forced the images away in the same way that he forced a smile now, dragging his feet as he walked behind the others. He'd put his coat on today, the one he'd hidden some emergency weed in, and he pulled it around his shoulders. It smelled of him – whiskey and occasionally brandy, and his cheap cigarettes (sometimes even Lambert and Butler), and the sharp sting of sweat because he was a fucking slob – and it had been bought for him by his deadbeat parents when he was about sixteen; he hated the assosciation with them but sometimes, when nobody was looking, he'd stroke the green wool of it, to remind himself where he came from and never to go back. His thoughts wandered, and his throat ached for something stronger than the iced tea Feuilly had made, but then the hospitals doors swung open with that strangely menacing hum they always had.

He'd never given blood before, never really been sober enough to do it, but he hadn't had a drink since the day before – someone had taken to emptying his hip-flask, and he was sober and hating it; he flopped down on one of the orange plastic chairs next to Musichetta to wait.

"You'd have thought they'd make the chairs more comfortable," she said, chucking him a folder of information, and her accent (which he'd still not placed) made the words lilt like waves. He snickered, because he'd become used to sleeping on these chairs, when dragged in unwillingly by friends or family or strangers who got concerned when, mid-fuck, he'd stop breathing… he looked around at the staff and wondered how many had seen him half-naked, in someone else's flip-flops, but couldn't quite bring himself to care.

"Jehan, what do you reckon? The chairs are probably a metaphor, or something? for like, the human condition," he called to Jehan, who was engrossed in a painting on the wall, and who merely waved his hand and continued scribbling on his jeans. All his jeans – whether lavender, lemon-yellow, duck-egg blue – were covered with writing, because he'd "run out of skin but not of ideas", but now he had Courf (who was eating an egg sandwich in an improbably obnoxious manner) to write on – and about?

Cosette frowned at Grantaire, and went over to tell the waiting medics her name. Marius sighed, and rolled up his sleeves to follow her.

Grantaire went to roll his own sleeves up, and an almost-imperceptible intake of breath from the other side of the room stopped him. He looked up, and Enjolras was staring at the scars that latticed up his forearms and striped over his biceps, eye widened in shock. Grantaire pulled his sleeves down again, and fiddled with the button on his cuff until he peeked behind him to see that Enjolras had gone. He sighed with his entire body, but started to flip through the booklet he'd been given.

"Are you HIV positive, or do you think you might be HIV positive?"

"Have you ever injected or been injected with illegal or non-prescribed drugs?"

"Have you ever been given drugs or money for sex?"

He flipped the booklet closed again, and stood up, handing it back to Musichetta. "Anyone for coffee? Irish coffee, if I can find my hip flask?" but then Enjolras came back into the room, and looked at him, before gesturing with a wave of his hand. Grantaire rolled his eyes (because it was pretty much his default reaction to everything), but followed him down the corridor.

"I can't give blood, you know," Grantaire said, trying to avert the conversation he knew must be coming. Enjolras' eyes flickered over him, questioning, and he grinned ruefully. "The drugs, the unprotected sex, the whole sex-for-drugs thing, and I think the tattoo's a bit dodgy too – " and Enjolras' face fell, his guard let down so quickly it was almost funny. "I don't mind, though. Never was much of a fan of needles, no matter what they're for," and he nodded at Enjolras and turned to go.

"Wait a second, R – " and he stopped, because Enjolras never called him _R_, and certainly never had that note of pleading in his voice, and because his hand was wrapped around his arm with the strength of a vice. "The scars, they're old, right? And no snark, please?" and this note of uncertainty was new as well, but he just nodded.

"They're – I was about seventeen, and I couldn't buy alcohol yet and I was too much of a wuss to buy drugs, so I had to do something self-destructive. And that's what I did, and it helped me –"

Enjolras was frowning, and he slid the shirt-sleeve up to look at the scars. "It helped you? How – " but then he was tracing the faint white marks with the tips of his fingers (presumably unconsciously) and Grantaire almost forgot to breathe. "You're – Grantaire, I know you don't have a high opinion of me," and when Grantaire opened his mouth to protest, Enjolras hurried on – "but the fact that you are here right now is incredible. Seriously, you've lived twenty-three years without breaking; you have bent – " and Grantaire tried his hardest not to snort with laughter at the apt analogy because that was definitely Enjolras' _serious face_– "but you are here. I'm not sure how much you care about anything, but I do know that you have lived more in your life than I have. And yet you survive still." He paused, fingers still tracing the scars, but it was no longer soothing; Grantaire's heartbeat was drumming a tattoo on his ribcage.

"I know we may not always see eye to eye on anything – or ever, actually – but you are a part of les amis, a part of the family, almost. And family means nobody gets left behind – " and now Grantaire was laughing, because Enjolras, the marble lover of liberty, watching Disney films? And Enjolras was laughing too, eyes squeezed shut, and Grantaire stopped laughing just to look at him, and to sneakily twist his arm so that for the second time that day, their fingers were interlaced. Enjolras smiled at him – not sarcastic, but as if he couldn't help himself. He would probably ruffle his hair if he got the chance.

"I need to go and donate my pint, but we'll talk afterwards, okay?" and the way he said it wasn't a suggestion; Grantaire's stomach roiled (probably about the idea of having to talk about his fucking _feelings_ but also because the vegan muffin had tasted off) and he just watched Enjolras extract himself and stride off. He didn't just walk – it was probably non-revolutionary to walk like a normal human being – and my god but those jeans were tight.

He sloped back to the waiting room, where Éponine pounced. "What's going on? What did you say? What did he say? Is there a something happening here?" because she knew unrequited love when she saw it, staring back from the mirror every day, and he let the corners of his mouth tilt up into half a smile. She gave him a questioning look, and he rolled his eyes to the heavens and flung himself into the seat next to her.

"He saw my scars," he muttered, and her face softened, because she knew what he was talking about (having found being forced to partake in crimes and cons since she could walk rather difficult to deal with), and her hand crept into his, her bitten nails snagging on the threadbare jumper that he'd forced over his wrist. "He was okay about it, said I was a part of les amis, and that I was bent? I'm not really sure that he thought that metaphor through, but it's the thought that counts. So." and he smiled at her until she returned it.

Just then, there was an almighty crash from the next room, and Combeferre (at least it sounded like him) yelled "Enjy!" (which, okay, was plain hilarious), and everyone turned to look. Enjolras had just fainted, face-first into a wall. Courf, who was hooked up next to Jehan, tried to muffle his laughter into his other arm, but a giggle escaped. Combeferre was desperately fumbling with the cap of a lancet, but before he or anyone else could help Enjolras (still out cold, and bleeding above his eyebrow), Grantaire had – to everyone's surprise, including himself – put him neatly into the recovery position.

Joly, who was looking green and staring at the freezer full of blood, said "I didn't know you could do the recovery position," and then remembered himself and hurried over to check if Enjolras would be okay. He pronounced that he would live, but don't "let him drive" and that "he must have not eaten, the idiot," and Musichetta reached out a hand to draw him closer to her.

Grantaire pulled his car keys from his bag, and waved them at everyone. "I can drive him," and as one, they raised an eyebrow. "I'm sober! I haven't had a drink since last night – and anyway I can drive better drunk that Bahorel can when all he's had is lemon squash," which was a fair point. Combeferre – the guide in occasions such as this – nodded, and within ten minutes Enjolras was in the passenger seat of Grantaire's crappy Pinto, which he'd not realised was his until a fine had showed up in the post a few weeks ago. He was awake, but still a bit vague – and grumpy to boot, muttering under his breath about the state of the car. And okay, there were a few empty bottles and wrappers, but there was nothing to complain about – until something actually _died_ in there, he'd leave it.

"Didn't have you pegged down as the squeamish type," Grantaire grinned, looking across at Enjolras. He was rewarded with a glorious scowl. "Actually, I haven't eaten today because when I was walking back from the shop (after buying a kilogramme of chocolate for Gavroche because Ép blackmailed me) with my breakfast, I saw a kid about his age begging. So I gave it to him." He shrugged, and Grantaire felt a blush begin to spread over his cheeks.

"Wait, what did she blackmail you about –" but he looked over to see that Enjolras seemed to be asleep, his head tucked neatly between the seatbelt and the window pane – although he'd been fine ten seconds ago. He shrugged to himself in the mirror, and flicked the switch to turn the heating up. Joly had been very clear on keeping the "patient" warm.

He pushed his sleeve up again to look at the white marks, and glanced over at Enjolras, before dragging it back down over his hands again.


	8. Chapter 8

Enjolras was still sleeping when they pulled up outside their building, and he was frowning slightly as he dreamed, his mouth half-forming words. The traffic had been terrible, but Grantaire had found a packet of cigarettes in the glove compartment – although he'd not smoked them because forcing someone who was borderline unconscious to passive-smoke seemed a little cruel – and a bottle in the boot, which he'd taken one sip of and nothing more. The police knew him – too many arrests, the most recent being for some "offensive" graffiti – and they knew Enjolras too, because when he showed up to as many protests (and organised as many), they soon learned that he was a force to be reckoned with.

Therefore, by the time they got back, Courf was standing on the pavement and almost bouncing up and down in his Converse. "How mighty are the fallen!" he said joyfully, before snapping a picture of Enjolras (who later would deny that he was sucking his thumb, despite the photographic evidence) and half-dragging Grantaire out the car to help Enjolras walk. "They took his blood sugar levels at the hospital and he was way too low to even consider giving blood, the idiot," Courf said, half-frowning at Enjolras before skipping - and someone had spent way too much time with Jehan – up the stairs.

Grantaire frowned, and shook Enjolras awake, gently. Then, once he'd been persuaded to get out the car (and Jesus, concussion made him grumpy), he stood (wobbling) before Grantaire sighed and made him lean on his shoulder. "We'll take the lift," he said, and Enjolras exhaled in relief (and his breath tickled Grantaire's neck); he said a quiet "thank you", before grudgingly leaning onto Grantaire and starting to move.

"You are such an idiot, you know that? Like seriously, who the fuck doesn't eat before they give blood? Idiots, that's who – " and Enjolras nodded once (which shouldn't have been so adorable and/or attractive because a submissive Enjolras was pretty bloody strange) before insisting that no, he was a _good person_ and he had a "rare blood type that people need and I need to save people" – and wow god complex, but Grantaire thought that maybe it was okay because Enjolras was moderately god-like, but he stopped himself imagining a statue of him in the British Museum because it might be slightly creepy.

It was definitely creepy.

The lift dinged, and with a firm "come on", they made their way into Courf's apartment – the closest one to the lift – and Enjolras slumped onto the sofa.

Joly peered at him in concern (and so maybe driving had been a bad idea if the fucking public transport arrives before the car does) and said "He shouldn't be this affected by only losing a pint of blood, no matter how low his blood sugar levels are. And he's not diabetic, and I know he'd only do the whole collapsing thing if he felt really shit." and Combeferre nodded at him, and polished his glasses on his jumper.

Feuilly approached them, still slightly paint-streaked, and leaned forward to whisper in Enjolras' ear. "The British Royal family costs around £134 million a year", and at that Enjolras frowned and sat up.

Bahorel gave Feuilly a round of applause, which made him turn scarlet, and Combeferre smiled and said "The press in Italy is only partly free," and Enjolras frowned deeper and stood up – and this time he was barely wobbling.

And Musichetta yelled from the corner that "the USA doesn't give paid maternity leave", and Joly stroked her cheek before nodding along. A muscle in Enjolras's jaw twitched.

Jehan, who was entwined with Courf (and everyone knew that they'd been sort-of seeing each other but it wasn't official), looked up and added "70, 000 people have been killed in the conflict with Syria, and there are over a million refugees," before Enjolras held up his hands.

"Okay, okay, I'm fine. Thanks for that – and seriously, the royal family cost that much?- but I'm going to be fine. Right, the question is – what are we going to do about all that?"

Grantaire snorted. "Yeah, like we can change things? We're a bunch of students with laptops, nothing more. The world will never change because people like oppression – it keeps them in clothes and books and sweatshop phones – and it's terrible, but it's fucking ridiculous to think we can do anything about it," and he paused to breathe. Enjolras's face was starting to lose the pale sheen of sweat, and colour was coming into his cheeks.

"Did you see that programme about Anonymous? They helped facilitate the Arab Spring by getting people online who had been shut off by the regime. They helped to allow people to fight their oppressors, to overthrow dictatorships of forty years, to have free elections and democracy – and half of them are probably students with laptops – " but Grantaire interrupted again.

"Yeah, but look at them now. Look at Syria – civil war – and Egypt – Morsi has practically made himself a pharaoh. They're no better off than they were under the regimes, they're living in a reign of terror (and don't look so surprised that I know my history) and they have nobody to trust when both sides are committing atrocities in the name of democracy or fascism or whatever is their name of the week." and he was standing now, gesticulating with the bottle he'd liberated from the car, but trying hard not to drink it.

Enjolras's eyes blazed, but Combeferre rolled his eyes at Grantaire, before patting Enjolras on the back. "Ignore him, he's just doing it to get a rise," and at that Courf _giggled_ before being hit by Jehan (who then spent the next five minutes "kissing it better" in penance which would have been okay, had the "grievous injury" not been to Courf's _groin_) and Combeferre rolled his eyes at them because he knew what they were thinking and now he was too.

In the corner where she usually sat, Éponine was having her hair braided by Bossuet and Musichetta, who had handed out muffins to everyone (and "yes, Bahorel, they are fucking vegan, stop asking me or I'll get Joly to disinfect you") and Éponine was silently watching Enjolras and Grantaire; they moved around each other like magnets, she decided ,magnets that desperately want to fight the (possibly very much one-sided) attraction thing but couldn't help it – and she whispered this to Cosette, who told Marius.

And then by evening, Jehan had written a villanelle about magnets (no names mentioned) and everyone realised that maybe there was something there, but Enjolras and Grantaire were nowhere to be found and somewhere (possibly once Cosette had produced the Baileys to widespread cheers) they had all forgotten where they'd gone.

In actual fact, Enjolras had forced Grantaire to talk to him.

"The scars, then," he'd said, and Grantaire had looked up, eyes guarded. "Look, I know you probably don't want to talk to me, and I'm not going to pretend I understand because I've not gone through it. But there's help – " and at that Grantaire backed off against the wall.

"I've tried help," he said, with a bitter laugh. "Ketamine is really good for depression, did you know that? It's better than antidepressants and it's more fun – " but Enjolras was frowning again and talked over him.

"That's what I mean. Not just the scars (and you do promise they're old, right?) but the drugs and the drink and the – " and then he stopped, before visibly forcing himself to go on – "the unprotected sex, and Éponine told me about Montparnasse when she was drunk and crying over how he's mean to her, so you can't deny it."

Grantaire stopped, brain whirring. "Did I just become a Cause for you? Are you going to go to protests about how I shouldn't be allowed to take drugs or drink or fuck around? That's like, a censorship of my rights probably. The right to freedom of choice maybe?" and he'd drunk more of the whiskey than he'd thought, which usually he could handle but not today, and Enjolras put his hands on his shoulders.

"You think I hate you, don't you? You think I look at you with utter disgust. And yeah, sometimes I do, when you come back high as a kite or so drunk you can barely call me to call me names (but you still somehow manage it.) But I look at you, and I see a man who used to believe in things, who used to be an optimist, but became a disgruntled cynic. And I don't know why that is, but I think you are capable of change." He stopped, and Grantaire had to force his mind out of the gutter because hands and neck and smell of shampoo, and swallowed. His Adam's apple bobbed in a way that was somehow obscene, and Grantaire forced his eyes to the ceiling in an attempt to calm down.

"Don't roll your eyes," Enjolras warned. "You need a cause, too. You don't believe in anything – "

"I believe in you," Grantaire muttered, suddenly horrifyingly brave, and Enjolras fell silent.

The silence stretched, warped, and Enjolras took his hands off Grantaire's shoulders; suddenly Grantaire was bereft, a drowning man on a sinking ship, and he watched as Enjolras walked back out to join the others.

He was still sitting there in the dark when Jehan and Éponine came to find him. "Ignore him," she commanded, and Jehan nodded at him. "He probably didn't realise, you know what he's like. And there's no way he's homophobic because – " but Éponine shushed him and he shrugged. She bent down and crawled to lean against his knees.

"He's a complete shit and we hate him, okay? And you're going to stop drinking that and come and laugh with us and pretend nothing has changed. Just because he's practically emotionally constipated and generally shit, we must remember that he has had a hard life, and has faced many trials." Jehan raised an eyebrow, but she carried on. "Yes, and one of those trials is being born a compete idiot."

Grantaire nodded, but was still frowning. "One of the trials is having a lazy, alcoholic fuck-up hanging around all the time. I mean, what do I contribute to the meetings, apart from to make people doubt? I'm the leaden weight that drags everyone down – " and Jehan slapped him firmly on the cheek.

He gasped in shock, and scowled at the poet (but didn't do anything in return because Courf would murder him), before speaking again. "Seriously, and he tries to be nice and I just go and fuck it up and now I'm drunk and crying and he's in there and he'll never look at me, and I fucking hate this feelings shit." He pulled the lid off his bottle and took another long gulp, but his throat convulsed and he spat it back up again, whiskey mingling with the tears that coursed down his cheek and neck.

"Calm the fuck down," said Éponine, and he sniffed once before looking up at her through eyelashes spiked with tears. "Look, he'd be fucking lucky to have you. You are – " and she broke off, but Jehan carried on.

"You are possibly the bravest person I've met," and he looked at both of them as he said it, and Grantaire realised he must know about the scars. He smiled faintly at him, and Jehan pulled two ribbons (green, today) from his hair and gave one to each of them.

"Okay, give me your hands," he said, and his ears were red with possible slight embarrassment but Grantaire did so, and Jehan tied a ribbon around each of their wrists, and smiled at them, before kissing them both and slipping out the room.

Éponine stood, and held out her hand to Grantaire. He reluctantly allowed himself to be pulled up, and she laced their fingers together, and she switched on the light.


	9. Chapter 9

Grantaire avoided seeing Enjolras for a few days – he couldn't escape the fact, of course, that he was always there – he so rarely left the group that he was a constant presence. And he couldn't escape the onslaught of images in his head every time he was drunk or horny or lonely or happy, but that couldn't be helped at all; luckily nobody seemed to have noticed that when Enjolras was up on his soapbox about abortion rights, Grantaire's mind was a whirring ticker-tape of well-lit porn.

Well, Courf had noticed, but considering that Courfeyrac was pretty much the expert on porn (he claimed that he'd once had to do some research into it for his degree – something about international law – and the website hadn't let him cancel his subscription, which only Marius believed), he'd probably know the slight slackness to the jaw, a certain way of sitting, that this sort of thing (inappropriate, as he reminded himself all the time, praying there were no secret mind-readers amongst les Amis) would imprint on someone's body.

That, and the fact that obviously Jehan (hands curving inside Courfeyrac's shirt, and they still thought they were being subtle?) had written all over the wall about magnets and opposites in his neat script, which Cosette (because although she looked like an angel, she had a rebellious streak which Éponine sadly encouraged, and the group had taken to her as quickly as they'd realised Marius was a bit odd) had drawn dicks under. For the sake of the peace, Combeferre had tacked a map of the world on top of the poetry (and seriously, Jehan would be paying the landlord to remove the writing).

The map, however, encouraged Enjolras – it was a US map for some reason, and it cut Asia in half to make the USA the centre of attention – and so many rants had followed about consumerism and functionality that they had all decided it would be easier to remove the map again. Feuilly had stolen it and scribbled out most of the world, apart from Poland, and had put it on _his_ wall.

So, every time Grantaire walked past that wall, he'd think about the whole magnets analogy, and he'd think about Enjolras, and he'd remember the way his face closed off the last time they spoke. Éponine kept shooting him sympathetic glances, along with messages telling him to "man the fuck up, you loser, seriously you are not Juliet so stop fucking _pining_ x", but he sent the same back to her whenever he saw her gaze lingering on Marius for a second too long.

Gavroche had started showing up at the Musain at weekends, skateboard and stolen sweets in tow, which Éponine encouraged simply because it was an excuse to get out of lessons for a few hours. They'd learned a lot more about the history of the two, and Cosette, and her terrifying father – and the soap-opera worth of secrets that had come spilling out had been a welcome distraction.

"I'm Gavroche, I'm known for being a fucking twat (not my words), and I'm currently fourteen. I am here today because I was running from Javert- he caught me shoplifting again. I live in a children's home because I ran away from my parents – " and his patter, the patter of a practiced street story-teller, was interrupted by Courf.

"Why?" and Éponine shot him a warning look, because for her the memories were fresh enough to leave shadows under her eyes. Undeterred, Gavroche shrugged, bony shoulders pushing his collarbones upwards to jut through his thin shirt (and didn't the kid have anything else to wear? it was March), before pulling up the tattered hem and showing them the blue-black marks – like that of a boot – that sprawled across his stomach. Combeferre winced visibly, but Éponine merely raised an eyebrow.

"When did they start hitting you? They didn't hit me – " and then Grantaire stopped, and looked at her. "When I said I ran away, I mean they threw me out. I got caught by Javert – nearly – stealing from the off-licence and they decided I was too much of a liberty. They talked about you, you know. Said you were a better cat burglar than I could ever be, even though I'm "scrawny"," and he paused, the bravado in his voice fading. "So, that's how I ended up in that home of Mabeuf's. Nice bloke, but deluded when it comes to higher powers. And it's okay there. Nobody hits me, nobody drinks too much – " and Éponine and Grantaire exchanged glances – "but I miss having my own space." He looked up at Éponine, who was absent-mindedly mussing his dirty blonde hair.

"When I graduate – " and he sighed with his entire body, flopping into the sofa. He seemed to recover from the disappointment fairly quickly, though, because he reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled cigarette and a bag of sweets. "Lollipop?" he offered, shaking the bag in front of his audience. Courfeyrac took one.

"I like him, can we keep him?" he said to Jehan, who raised an eyebrow and stole his lollipop.

In the corner, Cosette was crying silently – not the type of crying for attention, but tears were coursing down her cheeks. Marius, sitting on the floor with his head resting on her knees (because it was obvious who wore the trousers in _that_ relationship), reached up to entwine his fingers with hers; there was a pause, as if everyone were holding their breath, and then she spoke.

"I lived with Éponine when I was younger. My mum couldn't look after me, she had to work, and she'd send money each month to pay for my upkeep. Strictly on the down low, of course – and they used me as bait," and she looked at Éponine as if unwilling to go on. Éponine nodded at her, and half-smiled. "They'd lie about me being ill, and having to pay for clothes and special food, and so she'd send more and more. It was fine until she lost her job –" and Feuilly, always attuned to these sorts of things (past tense where parents were concerned), moved to pat her on the back gingerly. She smiled at him, tears shining on her cheeks.

"She lost her job because of me. I'm not sure of the details, but anyway, she ended up on the streets. She sold everything she had, and then she sold herself. She caught something in that brothel, and she died." Marius had moved onto the sofa, and was holding her. Grantaire thought about all the causes Cosette liked to help – women's shelters, women's rights – and as she pushed her hand up to move her hair out of the way, he saw charity wristbands criss-crossing her wrists. Enjolras had many the same, but he forced the thought away.

"So then – " and her voice was trembling, but she went on – "the owner of the factory she worked in, he'd promised her to look after me. So he did. He's my father now – I never knew my real father, and I can only remember being told he was fond of a joke." There was a silence in the room. Bahorel (who had assumed from her clothing and way of speaking that Cosette was the gilded cage-bird she looked like), moved to hold one of her hands in his huge one.

Jehan looked at up at her from where he was squashed next to Courfeyrac. "But Ép – " and at that, Éponine looked up at Cosette, too. "I stayed, and I was forced to steal and beg and hurt people. I got out as soon as I could, though. It's funny, isn't it? How our roles and fortunes have been reversed – " and Marius frowned at her (she sank back into the chair). Grantaire shrugged, and started to drink from the Ribena bottle that was fooling precisely nobody. Joly and Feuilly started to play chess on Joly's phone.

Cosette had stopped crying, and sniffed once. "Anything good on tonight? I don't want to go to the Musain, really," and Bossuet seized the remote. Once they'd found and replaced the batteries he'd scattered across the floor, they put Lord of the Rings on. Courfeyrac started wailing about his "babies", and Jehan pinched him in the side – which, with a yowl of pain, made Courf stop pretending to cry. "The Might Courfeyrac does not fear death," and everyone rolled their eyes as one, and Jehan clapped a hand over his mouth before he could talk about cages because they were watching the _first film you idiot_.

Enjolras muttered mutinously about kings under his breath, and wouldn't shut up until Cosette chucked a cushion at his head, at which point he admitted that _okay_ Galadriel is a bamf. Joly curled up with Musichetta and Bossuet, and could be heard saying the lines along with the characters; Musichetta rolled her eyes and kissed him to shut him up. Bahorel informed everyone that he would get dibs on Aragorn, were he a real character, and Feuilly frowned at him until he clarified "to fight with". They settled.

Combeferre had relaxed his rule on no smoking in anyone's rooms, which had caused the rest of the group to denounce him as a dictator – "look, it's adorable that you care about our lungs but we don't so shut up, four-eyed fascist" – because "if the fourteen-year-old can smoke" (which he was doing, despite Éponine's best efforts to take his cigarette away), the rules went out the window, apparently. He seemed a little stressed, tonight; every time Éponine looked down at her phone and smirked in a way that suggested the conversation was NC-17, he sighed.

She stood up, and grabbed her leather jacket and bag, before hiking her skirt up until the tops of her stockings were just visible (she'd hit Bahorel for insinuating that she was asking for trouble, and he'd apologised and bought her some fishnets, because she carried a knife most of the time and knew how to use it) – at which Combeferre blanched – and she left, swinging her bag behind her. The door slammed.

Grantaire's phone beeped, and a barrage of cushions and Doritos (where had they come from?) hit him until he silenced it. He waited until the attention of everyone had gone back to the screen (where Gandalf was having a "fab-off" with Saruman, as Feuilly insisted on calling it), and opened it.

**Enjolras: ** we still need to talk, you know. About the other week.

He risked a glance over at Enjolras, who seemed to be just as engrossed in the film, but then his phone vibrated this time in his hand.

**Enjolras: **You're not a cause, you know. You're a friend, and I care very much about all my friends.

Grantaire shot him another look, and this time Enjolras caught him looking. Slipping his (ancient non-brand) phone into his pocket, he motioned to the door with his head, and then stood up smoothly and left the room.

Musichetta raised one perfect eyebrow at Grantaire, because she seemed to know everything, shaman that she was, and then winked at him. She elbowed Jehan, who poked Courfeyrac, who gave him a huge thumbs-up. He mouthed something, which looked horrifyingly like "go get him, tiger", and Grantaire rolled his eyes and stalked out.

The room outside was dark, and colder than the inside. He couldn't even remember whose house they were in, so he followed with trepidation – until he spotted the enormous jar of biscuits and realised it must be Courf's.

Enjolras was standing in the darkened kitchen, silhouetted against the night sky (because apparently Jehan had removed all the curtains to make the kitchen brighter – not that he even lived here yet), and he pushed a glass of water towards Grantaire. "I know you've been drinking – I can smell the whiskey on you," and Grantaire simply nodded silently and gulped the water in one, slamming the glass down as if it were a shot, because bad habits die hardest of all.

"I don't look at you and see just scars and cynicism and sarcasm, the man who I have to talk down off bridges and carry home when you've passed out under the bridge again. I see the man you must have been before this happened, whatever happened. You deserve to get better, and you deserve to do it for yourself, and I'm not going to take that away from you. You've lost enough. I want to help you, though." He sounded confident, as if this had been playing in his mind for days, and knowing him and his bizarre attitude to preparation (seriously, he'd once commended Courfeyrac for making kissing coupons which made no sense to anyone else), he would have done.

Grantaire snorted. "You're going places. There's probably a seat in Parliament with your name on, or the byline of Private Eye. You're the change, or whatever it was Ghandi said (and what the fuck does he know because he's fucking _dead_), you want to see in the world. But I'm headed for the gutter, or a ditch, and there's nothing you can do about that." He looked at Enjolras, who was very close now; he could see his own face reflected in his pupils.

"I can't get better for anyone, you know that," and he was half-shouting now, "not even you and you –" hands gesticulating erratically, because he'd had too much whiskey and he was too close to Enjolras – and then he felt long fingers wrap around his wrists (could Enjolras feel his pulse jump?), tracing the scars with a sort of curiosity, not judgement.

He felt that if he breathed too deeply, he could breathe the same breath as Enjolras, they were that close, and then he has to stop thinking because Enjolras's lips are soft and not gentle, slightly chapped and warm; and then he is ghosting his name like a prayer as he kisses; and dear god, he'd have to ask Joly if Enjolras is ill because this seems rather out of character. Grantaire's hands bunched in Enjolras's hair (getting slightly too long, and curling), and Enjolras's hands curve across the base of his spine, pulling at his jacket. He takes a breath, and it feels like he's on the edge of a precipice.

Grantaire is the first to pull away, because he feels like he could stay like this forever, his mind buzzing with questions and the smell of Fairtrade and organic shampoo.

"What – " he tried, but Enjolras raised an eyebrow. "No, seriously, is this a joke? Did Courf pay you or something? Look at you, seriously, and then look at me and I – " and he stopped again. Enjolras wasn't laughing.

"I – I never threw you out, did I? Combeferre told me to, did you know that?" and Grantaire shoots a furious glance at the door because no, he fucking didn't. "It was that time you turned up absolutely hammered to that rally in Trafalgar Square, and you made it onto the news because you passed out and were almost trampled by the police, and we had to leave early to look after you." He quirked the other eyebrow. "But I couldn't throw you out – and for some reason, Gavroche and Courfeyrac are the only ones who know, which means actually everyone knows – because I saw something in you that was more than just the cynic."

He stopped, and Grantaire rubbed his eyes. "I am a cause, aren't I? I mean, I'd take that, because god knows I need someone to fight my corner – " but Enjolras's lips were on his again and he wondered again what the fuck was going on, but sighed into it and traced a line with his tongue along Enjolras's bottom lip.

There was a desperate rapping at the door, and Grantaire twisted away from Enjolras, pulling their fingers apart. They walked out of the kitchen, deliberately untouching, but their hands brushed once and Grantaire felt it like a bolt of electricity humming through his veins. Courfeyrac saw them first, and his face split into a huge grin; before he could say anything, Combeferre had pulled open the door and Éponine stood on the doorstep, sobbing. There were grazes on her knuckles and a red welt on her cheek, and her hair was more messed up than normal.

"What the hell happened?"Combeferre asked, before drawing her into his arms to hold her; she sobbed out against his shoulder that "We had a fight- Montparnasse and me – he's got a black eye and a cut from my ring," and she waved her hand (still bleeding slightly from the knuckles) in the arm. Combeferre grabbed it and held it tight.

The others stood back; Cosette was half-hugging Gavroche, who looked as if he wanted to go and beat Montparnasse up. The film was still playing in the next room, but nobody was watching it any more; Musichetta came over and took Éponine's other hand, and pulled her into the kitchen. "I'll clean these cuts up," she said, and Joly followed her. Bossuet stood where he was, looking bereft.

Courfeyrac shot a look at Grantaire, who was trying to force his shellshocked brain to make sense of the events of the evening. It was a lot to take in, and then his phone vibrated again.

**Courfeyrac:** you have stubble burn on your face. did you make out in my kitchen? you wanton mistress of the night

He frowned at Courf, who snorted in response, and tapped out another message.

**Courfeyrac:** by the way that is unsanitary and we are never going to tell joly. also Enjolras told us he thought you were "worth saving" or whatever words he used, after that time you hit him for taking away your vodka. it was cheap vodka too, you lush. love you honeybunch xxx

Grantaire switched his phone off.


	10. Chapter 10

"It's all about release, you know," Grantaire had told him, as he'd watched him bandage the cuts that laced up Éponine's arms. Combeferre hadn't replied, but Éponine had rolled her eyes at him and tugged her sleeve up to cover the dressings. "You know – when you relapse, with anything, it is so much worse than before; there's no reason to stop, because you've already pissed everyone else off, and you might as well do it as badly as you ever have done, until you can't see the anger in your own eyes in the mirror, until you can't articulate to people _why_ – " and at that, Combeferre frowned at him.

"R, you need to be quiet for a bit," and the careful control he was using to speak was a warning; Grantaire shut up. He kissed Éponine on the cheek (who recoiled from him, later claiming he smelled like an "ashtray drowned in Tullamore Dew"), and sloped to the corner, where he slumped with his head on the table. He avoided looking at Enjolras, who had been silent as soon as the blood had soaked through the cuffs of Éponine's jacket, but was sitting watching.

"What did you use, Ép?" Combeferre asked, ignoring the way Enjolras (who was now back to trying not to pout in irritation, and occasionally stroking the red-raw stubble burn with an attempt at carelessness that fooled nobody) sat up slightly, and then walked out (and perhaps it was a sign of how the whole fairly obvious Grantaire situation had affected him, that he did not stride).

She flinched slightly at the noise of the door shutting behind Enjolras, and Combeferre raised an eyebrow conspiratorially, and then turned to put away the first aid kit. They had an entire cupboard full in each house, simply because Joly would refuse to go anywhere without a triangular bandage to hand, and she watched him, calmly. She'd stopped crying now; her make-up had run in tracts down her face, and the bruises on her knuckles were blooming.

"I used a knife," and he swore under his breath. "It's not that bad, though. I could tell it was going to happen, and when I've been drinking anyway it makes me do it more badly." She shrugged, and looked across to Grantaire. "R," she called, throwing a bottle lid at him; it hit his shoulder, but he didn't move. "Oi, come on, back me up," and at that he groaned into the table and sat up.

"Look, Combeferre is a doctor and doctors try to lock you up if you talk about this – " and Combeferre frowned at him.

"I'm training to be a doctor, and I'm still not sure I want to be one. We can't all escape parental pressure at the bottom of a bottle, you know – " and Éponine hit him. He stopped, glasses knocked wonky by her backhand (and Grantaire, who had made too many comments about Montparnasse not to know how much it must have hurt, winced), and sighed.

"Look, I know you're some wise philosophical person owl thing or whatever – " and Combeferre blinked (owlishly), as Éponine snorted behind him – "but there are some things you don't intrude on, okay? I doubt Orwell has a quote to deal with this, the man didn't drink lager, and quite frankly you have to let the person who is suffering volunteer the information. That's my experience, anyway."

He reached out to ruffle Éponine's hair, and she let him, which meant she must still be shaken; the last time Grantaire had tried that, she'd thrown a plate at him. Combeferre looked out towards the window, where the skyline of the city glinted in the distance, and pressed his lips together in frustration.

"If you need to talk – " he started, and Grantaire and Éponine both snorted in unison. Combeferre ignored them and (okay someone had been watching too much Star Wars) put his hands on their shoulders. "I find your lack of faith disturbing," and before he could go on, Courfeyrac shouted from the other room "Han shot first!" and Éponine laughed.

Grantaire, looking at Combeferre, could see the way in which his face changed when she laughed; it was related (he supposed) to the way he'd worry his lower lip with his teeth when she cried until she was sobbing and gasping and choking for breath. He was adrift in the slight creases in her cheeks, and Grantaire wondered if he did something similar when he looked at Enjolras. (Not that Enjolras smiled much, unless he'd spotted a particularly brilliant article in the Occupied Times).

Éponine wiped her eyes (trailing black kohl over the backs of her hands), and shrugged. "I'm done with Montparnasse. He – well, we had a row over something, and I realised that I'm sick of being treated like shit just because he thinks he can get away with it." She looked up at them through her eyelashes, and sniffed. "So. I've deleted his number, because otherwise I'll text him when I'm drunk and horny – " and Combeferre shifted uncomfortably – "because now that Courf's with Jehan, or is pretending not to be with Jehan but they were making out shirtless in the café the other day, he's got someone for him when he's bored or whatever." Grantaire snorted.

"You and Courf? Jesus, Ép, when was this?" and her face twisted into a grin.

"Oh, a while ago. We were drunk. We were horny, and we were both single, and it was fun." He snorted again, and she raised her eyebrows. "Oh, R, like you haven't thought about it, ever? I mean, we all know Enjolras is the only one for you – " and he rolled his eyes, but she carried on – "Hey, what was all that about?" and she gestured to the door.

"Erm, I don't kn- " and she exhaled as if trying to calm down.

"R, you can't bullshit a bullshitter; I've been manipulating people since I could flutter my eyelashes, not that it was my choice – but. I can tell by the beard burn on his face and the stupid grin on yours –" she paused, and then looked down at her hands, still bleeding slightly from the grazes Montparnasse's facial piercings had left.

"Just – don't be all pathetic and soppy, okay? Marius and Cosette are bad enough, and we're not even with them half the time, and everyone else seems to be coupled off – Joly and Bahorel and Musichetta are tripled, I guess – so. Don't be like everyone else." She looked over at Combeferre, who cleared his throat. "I – "

Grantaire interrupted him, hands half-clenched and ready to grab onto the lapels of his stupid shirt, if necessary. "Oh, I hear you tried to get rid of me? Not in a Thenardier way," he clarified, seeing the look of half-horror on Éponine's face. "As in, you tried to get me to, what, leave the group?" The fear on Éponine's face shifted into anger, and she glared at Combeferre, who ignored her to look at Grantaire.

Combeferre's face fell slightly. "It was a while ago, that time Enjolras carried you back from the tube station, and then he missed an exam the morning after because you stopped breathing. I – I thought you were a dead weight," and he held up a hand to stave off the panic that must have been visible in Grantaire's face – "No, I mean. You were trouble, for him, I suppose. He's – he gets focused on things, and I thought that if you were one of them, he'd end up worrying so much his perfectly styled hair went white." He half-smiled. "But you've been – not good, exactly, but interesting. You invigorate him, you make him question things which he never bothered to question before." His half-smile formed fully into a beam, and Éponine (chewing on her bruised lip) nodded.

"Thanks," muttered Grantaire, unwilling to show his gratitude in his face. "I suppose I should talk to him?" he half-whispered, before squaring his shoulders. "I'm going to talk to him. Okay. I can do this, I passed my grade three piano with a hangover." He shot a grin over his shoulder at the pair of them, lit up by the thin shaft of light that pierced the blind, and just as he left, he saw Combeferre enfold Éponine in his arms once more.

He shut the door softly behind him, and the sounds from the other room (it sounded like Embarrassing Bodies, so Joly must have the remote) grew louder. He paused with his hand on the doorknob to the room; "and this is how we check your testicles" came through the door, and he recoiled slightly, mind full of unwelcome images of how exactly Joly, Bossuet and Musichetta would do that.

"It's terrible, isn't it?" He started, and turned to face the foot of the stairs, where Enjolras leaned against the wall. "I stayed long enough to hear the word "scrotum" and then decided enough was enough. It's like the last days of Rome in there; I think Courf may actually be naked right now. I tried to object on a moral viewpoint but they called me a fascist," and he sounded half-joking, half-upset.

"Ah, the political corruption of the horny explains Italian politics fairly well, I think," and at that Enjolras laughed.

"You hide it well, you know. You hide your intelligence. You're too clever for your own good, Grantaire. You dedicate yourself to being a screw-up, rather than fighting for change –" and Grantaire raised an eyebrow at that.

"Oh, and we're back to my dodgy moral compass, are we? I Seriously, what have we achieved? The other day, Elizabeth II approved a Bill, I think, to support a law promoting equality for gay people in the Commonwealth, but then she signed that Bill allowing councils to ignore our very existence ten years ago. I mean, does the double standard not shock you? And don't look surprised that I keep up with stuff! We can't change anything. It's stupid to try. I mean, sure, I understand how unfair it is, how terrible and degrading it is to bomb civilians in Pakistan or for websites like Uni Lad to exist, or how fucked up sentencing for rapists is – but we have signs. We go to protests. We protest. Nothing happens," and Enjolras glared at him, but didn't interrupt.

"And I suppose boycotting places that use child labour, like Topshop, or I don't know, boycotting Starbucks, or reading the Guardian or_ Libération_– might get you some Brownie points if you believe in some higher power. But there's nothing there. There's no glorious future awaiting us if we shout loudly enough." He shrugged, and wished he had a bottle in his hands right now.

"Maybe if you came to one of the protests, rather than just you know, passing out before it starts and making Bahorel and I late because we're having to carry you back here – you'd realise that anger does things. They say money makes the world go round – it's time to reclaim it for ourselves. Your little speech there might have convinced me, if I didn't know you're probably only doing it to piss me off – " and Grantaire started to protest, but Enjolras carried on talking over him, and he was close now.

"I know you believe in something. You told me, do you remember? I mean, you don't care, or don't want to care, about anything. But – passion is an energy, too, and I can't believe I'm doing this because I don't even _like_ you that much –" and then they were kissing, lips as harsh and fierce as their words had been, and Enjolras was pressed back against the wall with his leg between Grantaire's and my _god_, the friction was going to kill him and why didn't he wear more sensible trousers? And Enjolras's hands were greedily spanning his back underneath his shirt (today, it said "Save Water, Drink Beer") and this was the second time he'd felt those long fingers on his skin and good god it would never be enough, and he must shave with a cut-throat razor or something because his skin was as smooth as Éponine's that one time they'd been drunk enough to try, and it was only when Enjolras ghosted a laugh against his neck that he realised he'd been saying all this aloud.

Enjolras shifted slightly, away from the (terrible) painting done by Gavroche years ago – stick people standing outside a house, and the woman is huge and monstrous, and the man has burning eyes, and the children cower – that must have been digging into his back, and Grantaire had to remind himself to breathe because this is happening, Enjolras pressed up against the wall of Courf's hallway and biting his lips, and Grantaire murmurs under his breath but his lips are pressed against the curve of Enjolras's neck, and my _god _when did they start teaching virgins how to kiss –

And Grantaire slipped his fingers through the belt-loops on the back of Enjolras's (sinfully tight) jeans, and he was trying to remember exactly how much of his whiskey bottle is left (for posterity, and because maybe he did listen to Jehan talking about consent), and at the same time trying to concentrate on _not_ getting too hard (because okay, walking with a boner was fucking tricky and there were _stairs_ for some fucking stupid reason). "Someone might – " Enjolras started, but Grantaire laughed into his mouth. "Oh, like a little thing such as decorum," his voice was rough and his pupils, reflected in Enjolras's eyes, were blown with lust – but before he could finish his sentence Enjolras half-_moaned_ and he had to try control his own whimper.

He could see, from the dim light from under the living room door, that he'd left purple shadows across Enjolras's neck, and he guessed his own lips must be as swollen and bright as Enjolras's, and he slid his hand below the waistband of Enjolras's boxers (almost definitely red, but he and Bahorel had a pool going), and "_fuck_" he moaned against his skin, voice heavy with want, and too many cigarettes, and he wondered if he tasted of smoke – and Enjolras was kissing him harder than he'd even been kissed, and had shoved his hands half-roughly inside Grantaire's jeans with an almost-drunken sloppiness although he knew he was sober -

The door from the living room flew open to a chorus of "Holy shit, you randy fuckers," camera flashes and giggles from Courfeyrac; Jehan pretended to faint into his arms (although judging from the noises they'd been hearing, he was no swooning maiden), and Feuilly clapped slowly and sarcastically (and probably a little jealously, given the number of texts he'd been sending whining about his love life, and how he was stood away from Bahorel); the kitchen door banged open as well, and Éponine (lipstick smudged in a different way to how it had been) and Combeferre (now wearing smudged lipstick) rushed out, to snort in unison. Marius looked at her, and she looked away.

Enjolras rolled his eyes at the group, and extracted himself gingerly.

"About fucking time," Bossuet crowed, before pulling out his phone and consulting a list. "Right, who had this week? Oh, check your flies, boys - it wasn't me, we all know that – " and Courfeyrac (and _oh_, it would be him) raised a hand in victory.

"You were betting on us?" Grantaire asked, and moved to stand next to Éponine. She dropped her eyelid in a slow wink, and he raised an eyebrow back at her.

"Give us some credit for having eyes. I mean, you're nice to him. That's something we don't see – remember when that girl tried to chat you up, and as soon as you'd ascertained she wasn't a socialist, you just walked off? And that guy who asked for your number, pretending to be from some Republic pressure group, and he used one winky face and you cut him off? I mean – " and Musichetta's voice was cut off by Enjolras.

"Right, okay, I kissed Grantaire – " and Joly muttered "Oh, we saw your hands down each other's trousers, can we not pretend?" but Enjolras went on – "but we still have a protest to plan. Next week. I mean, if you checked the Facebook group, you'd know," and his glare included the whole group, although its effect was stilted somewhat by the hickeys that crossed his throat, and his heavy breathing; they quietened, and melted away into the kitchen, whispering.

Grantaire turned to go, but Enjolas, looking out the window, turned his head to blink at him. "Grantaire…. R. I'll – I'll add you to the Facebook group. And – the thing with Éponine might have. Well. I'll add you to the Facebook group." and he walked out the room, leaving Grantaire (still half-hard for Christ's sake) alone with his confusion.

"Fuck," he said quietly to the curtains. "Fuck."

a href=" /works/645697/chapters/1350915" here/a


	11. combeferre and enjolras discuss R

Enjolras closed the door behind him, swearing softly under his breath, and Combeferre looked up.

"Is he asleep?" he asked, glancing over at the abandoned shoes and the broken bottle on the floor.

Enjolras frowned slightly, and pursed his lips together. "Or passed out, yeah. He wasn't making much sense; we found him in the tube station, and he rambled for a while. Bahorel's gone home now though – Feuilly's ill again, and whilst they're still pretending not to like each other on principle (maybe they think we'll all think they're pairing the spares?) – " but Combeferre cut him off, as he'd been doing ever since they first sat next to each other in Maths at prep school.

"Oh, and I suppose you're one to talk about pretending not to like people? Most people – like this," and he gestured to the door, "would have been kicked out long ago. You always let him come back, don't you? I mean, you'll tell him to get out, to stop disgracing whatever protest you've dreamed up, but then he'll turn up at the café and you'll smile – " and he looked at Enjolras; they were exactly the same height, although Enjolras claimed to have a millimetre on him (imperial measurements were a relic of the Empire, apparently)– who looked away.

He sighed, and carried on more gently. "I know you – well, I know you're not used to relationships. God, how long has it been? In fact, since that time when Courfeyrac – "

Enjolras interrupted smoothly, as unruffled as if he'd prepared this, although his ears were reddening slightly. "I thought we agreed not to talk about that. It wasn't a relationship, it was one kiss in the library because of a bet, when the cleaners weren't looking – "

Combeferre waved a hand, as if he'd heard all this before. "There were shelves knocked over. Anyway. Grantaire's not going to stop, you know. Not for you. Not for himself, even, without help. I know what you're like with causes – do you remember that cake sale that got do out of hand that three boys were hospitalised? And, well: low chance of success; visible efforts – it's got the classic symptoms of something you're going to want to take on."

Enjolras stiffened, before visibly forcing himself to relax and sit down on the sofa. "I don't have _feelings_ for him, if that's what you're insinuating – " but Combeferre barked out a short laugh.

"Oh, right, you let him sleep in your bed without fussing about changing the sheets, even though he's sure to be sick all over them? I'm not allowed to sleep in your bed. That time I came back from a cello concert and I had the flu? Your bed was the only one free because Bossuet was recovering from a broken leg in mine, and his had broken with his leg when he'd jumped too high. And I slept on the sofa. I'm not saying you _prefer_ him – "

Enjolras rolled his eyes. "Is your horrible mood anything to do with the fact that we saw Éponine with her tongue down Montparnasse's throat and his hands up her shirt, earlier? How can you lecture me on my hypothetical – imaginary, goddamn – feelings for Grantaire, when your mooning is visible from space? He does care about things, you know. I mean, get him started one day on the cutting of funding for creative arts in schools, or the tax on alcohol, or how Prince Charles went to Cambridge without getting the grades. He's just as passionate about our inability to realise _our_ passions as we are about them. He's not half as apathetic as you'd like to think – "

Combeferre rolled his eyes. "I'm not saying I'm not sympathetic. If you like him, and by God we all know he likes you, tell him. Get it out of your system, get him out of your life. He's a dead weight. I know you'll think I'm being cold and harsh and cruel – "

Enjolras laughed, and looked back towards the door. "You're cold, not cruel. I know why you're doing this. You're trying to guide me on my quest – "

"Oh, you make one Merlin reference and you never live it down – " but Enjolras talked over him again.

"But I'm fine, Combeferre. Honestly. I can fight my own wars, and I've been living in the big bad world for a while. I know about life, I know about Grantaire's problems, and I'm not afraid of them. He's not broken, and I'm not going to fix him." He stopped, and then seemed to realise what he said.

"I'll just check on him," Combeferre said, smiling at him before pushing the door open. He paused in the doorframe, and then Enjolras heard "Shit, shit, Enjolras! Get in here!" and Combeferre didn't swear often, so something must be wrong.

He half-ran across the room, only to see Grantaire lying in his bed where he'd left him, hair clinging limply to his clammy forehead. His skin was grey-blue and his breath was rattling in his throat; before he even realised what he'd done, he'd picked him up (and now he was pleased he'd been forced to do sports for years at school; he could carry him without too much of an issue), and clattered down the stairs and into the car door that Combeferre had opened, strapping Grantaire into the back seat and sitting next to him, holding him upright.

"Shit, shit," he muttered under his breath, before realising that Grantaire was past hearing him. "Shit!" he said again, and Combeferre's eyes flickered over to his.

"I'll drive," he simply said, and flicked the heating on, then switched on the hands-free. He was put through to the emergency services, and although Enjolras tried to listen (not breathing properly, pulse sluggish) he soon tuned out Combeferre's words and focused on Grantaire. His breathing was rapid and shallow, his chest barely rising with each breath.

"Where the fuck is everyone else?" he said, trying to keep the panic out of his voice (because he didn't know how he'd got the alcohol when there were no off-licenses on the way to the tube station). Combeferre's eyes met his in the mirror.

"They went to Corinthe. Apparently Courf wanted to try the food again, to see if it's got worse. We stayed because exams tomorrow," and then he fell silent.

He didn't speak to Enjolras when the doctors arrived, or when they pumped Grantaire's stomach, or when they put him on a drip that took three tries to find a vein he'd not ruined himself; he didn't speak to him when he was given a handful of leaflets about addiction and problem drinking; he didn't speak when Grantaire threw up on an empty stomach, or when Enjolras woke up with a stiff neck from the plastic chairs.

He didn't speak until the following morning, an hour after the exam had started. They were sitting in the hospital café clutching coffees and waiting for Grantaire to pad down the hallway in his socks, when he suddenly looked at Enjolras.

"I hope he's worth it, you know. You'll undoubtedly be good for him, and he envigorates you and enlivens you even when you're dead on your feet, but I don't know if that's a good thing or not. Yet. I'll give it time."

Enjolras nodded once, and then stood up, bag full of vomit-stained clothes in his hand, as Grantaire rounded the corner unsteadily. His hair was lank, slashing shadows under his eyes.

"Time to go," he said, and they wondered how his voice sounded so normal when he'd had a tube down his throat all night. Combeferre looked down at his feet, and then, sighing, passed him a pair of trainers he'd liberated from lost property.

"Thank you," he said, and Combeferre smiled wearily.

"Come on," Enjolras ordered, and as it had always been, he lead the way, Combeferre at his side, and then, trailing behind, Grantaire.


End file.
